Home :: Books :: Science Fiction & Fantasy  

Arts & Photography
Audio CDs
Audiocassettes
Biographies & Memoirs
Business & Investing
Children's Books
Christianity
Comics & Graphic Novels
Computers & Internet
Cooking, Food & Wine
Entertainment
Gay & Lesbian
Health, Mind & Body
History
Home & Garden
Horror
Literature & Fiction
Mystery & Thrillers
Nonfiction
Outdoors & Nature
Parenting & Families
Professional & Technical
Reference
Religion & Spirituality
Romance
Science
Science Fiction & Fantasy

Sports
Teens
Travel
Women's Fiction
The HELLFIRE CLUB CASSETTE

The HELLFIRE CLUB CASSETTE

List Price: $25.00
Your Price: $25.00
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 2 3 4 5 >>

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: I haven't read it
Review: I haven't read this book but judging from the online reviews below, I don't think it's a very good book. I don't think Strab is a very good author either. Try reading some good old fashioned Dene Koonts. He writes some real good books like fear nothing. It is awesome!!!!! Fear nothing is part 1 in a trilogy and it will leave you wanting more and more of chris Snow (the main character that has XP [a rare disease that wont let Chris see the sun!]). Very exciting boook. Sezie the night is the secind novel in the series and the 3rd one hasn't come out just yet! but it will I bet!

Oh well, i'm off topic a little! hehe! sorry. Just wanted to say that this book sucks! Please try something else!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Psychological Thriller
Review: I love this book. I believe that this is one of his best, other than KoKo. Dick Dart is a great character. He is everything that I believe that American Psycho is not. He's smart, charming, and very evil. Straub's writing style of mixing the past with the future can be confusing at times, but it's well worth it in the end. Hint: keep on reading and don't try to go back to figure it out. Just keep reading.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Wonderful, surprising, literary!
Review: I read a lot of books, and Peter Straub is one of the best in my opinion. This is a man I'd like to be stranded with on an island. The ideas he has are amazing and his writing is like none other in the genre. The Hellfire Club is a wonderful book for anyone who enjoys mystery, suspense, or just wonderful writing. My only problem (and a small one), is that I think the title is misleading and doesn't have much to do with the plot. The book is simply one of the best I've ever read. Here's to hoping Mr. Straub keeps writing for many, many years!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: If you like Ghost Story, you won't like this.
Review: I read Ghost Story and Shadowlands years ago, and picked this up recently. While it has interesting characters and is well-written, I guess I was looking for something a little more exciting. I didn't find the psychopathic bad guy very frightening at all, and the book-cover hype about psychological duels between him and the protagonist lasted about 1/5 of the book. Couldn't hold me, didn't even finish it.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Audio version edits this book to ribbons
Review: I was very frustrated by the audio edition of this book. Side One of the first tape is so choppy, and the characters so bizarre and inexplicable, that it is almost impossible to follow. The protagonists make strange choices; people jump to weird conclusions without justification; and finally, the big finish of the story requires several ridiculously convenient coincidences. From the title, I was expecting a unique story about some sort of cabal or evil society, and instead I found myself listening to a mundane serial killer caper, roughly equivalent to your typical woman-in-jeopardy TV movie of the week. Finally, I borrowed a copy of the paperback, and realized that the novel -- while far from perfect -- filled in all the crucial missing pieces from the audio. The audio story, it turns out, has been so severely edited that it is nearly incomprehensible. Bottom line: if you think the synopsis sounds interesting, try the book, NOT the audio tape.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Straubs' Best !
Review: I've tried and failed to read each and every one of Peter Straubs' novels and it was with trepidation that i approached "The Hellfire Club". However once i started i absolutley couldn't put the book down. Well drawn characters, sharp plot twists and turns, as well as being darkly comical. This is truly Straub's best work, and i highly recommend this book to anyone who doesn't want to get a whole lot of sleep :o)

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: EXCITING
Review: It flows like a creek after a rain. It was about adults for adults obviously. I don't understand the negative reviews below(one didn't even read the book!), this had everything a GOOD horror should.

If you are looking for Halloweenie type bs then go somewhere else because this horror would be too REAL for you to stomach.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Straub's masterwork
Review: It has taken me a long to enjoy the works of Peter Straub. Or maybe it just took him a while to write ones I like. First, I read his "classic" Ghost Story ... and hated it. Bored me stiff. Still, I decided to give him another try and picked up the shorter -- and therefore more easily experimentable -- Julia. It was more interesting and had more sympathetic characters, but it still was a struggle to get through. Koko was no better, it being more a Vietnam novel than the less-reality-based horror I was used to.

By this point, I had almost entirely written Peter Straub off as an author for me. I was still curious due to his collaborations with Stephen King (The Talisman and Black House) and his pure stature as an author. Then, lost boy lost girl won the Bram Stoker award of 2003 and something told me to try again. I'm so glad I did. However, it's unfortunate that I've read The Hellfire Club this early, because nothing is likely to top it.

On the surface, The Hellfire Club concerns Davey Chancel, scion of the multi-generational family that rules Chancel House, a struggling publisher that is being kept afloat by its ownership of the copyright of author Hugo Driver's Night Journey. Night Journey is one of those books that people obsess over, name themselves after, and gather together to perform their own versions of, and their number includes Davey Chancel and several other characters in the book, including one who came as a complete surprise, especially given how he is written from his entrance on. The history of this book is a major plot point and is so well-described as to make it eminently frustrating that I'll never actually be able to read it.

But it's not long before we realize who the lead character really is. I don't want to give much away, because the ride of surprises offered by Straub in The Hellfire Club was most of what kept me reading. Sure, it reads like gangbusters, but there are a lot of people who can write fast-paced fiction. There are much fewer who can write fast-paced fiction and strong characters (especially female ones) and the most fascinatingly disturbingly-evil-yet-somehow-charming villain since Hannibal Lecter in Dick Dart and weave a mystery all through the pages and keeping bringing new and more fascinating characters into the mix without derailing the whole thing and tie the whole works together in a rocket of an ending that leaves you nearly breathless and wanting to start the whole thing all over again. All of which makes The Hellfire Club a compulsive read that I was picking up in every available free moment. Straub may never top this, but this will certainly keep me reading him in the meantime.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Dishonesty Among Publishers, Authors, Editors and Lawyers.
Review: On one level this book is about dishonesty among publishers, authors, editors and lawyers. It is also about strong-willed fathers whose destructive acts affect succeeding generations. There are many different strands to the book, even one dealing with ultra-secret societies at Yale. Peter Straub is able to weave these pieces together with extra-ordinary skill and the result is a riveting story.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Straub writes for intelligent readers!
Review: Other than Ramsey Campbell, Straub is the only horror writer I have read who dares to write for an intelligent audience. If you like trash horror with simplistic ideas like the novels of Bentley Little, then don't read Peter Straub. But if you enjoy writers who pay attention to how the writing sounds, how a novel can be constructed in unique ways, and how to entertain while provoking thought, then Straub is your man! The Hellfire Club takes some unexpected turns, and I don't think it all ties together as neatly as it might have, but Straub is brave for taking risks as a writer and trying to entertain without pandering to the lowest common denominator.


<< 1 2 3 4 5 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates